Some Thoughts on Gifted Education and Creativity

Overview & Synopsis

This article serves as commentary on the papers featured in the issue. Accordingly, these papers and the questions raised in them form the basis of its discussion. The papers, in turn, are addressing numerous aspects of creativity and working with the mathematically gifted, an area of study that has attracted considerable scholarly attention in the recent decades. This article attempts to elaborate on the findings and ideas of the discussed papers, specifically emphasizing the intrinsic connection between education for the mathematically gifted and general education, as well as the importance of the study and improvement of the practice of mathematics education. The piece starts with the discussion of a few relevant theoretical problems, then, following one of the papers in the issue, addresses the myths of gifted education and creativity, and then goes into other themes of the issue, including classroom practices and mathematics teacher education. At the end, some new research questions posed in the issue are discussed.